Welcome to Social Media Playground, a place to discuss all things related to word of mouth (WOM) and social media marketing. Brought to you by Affinitive, a word of mouth and social media marketing, technology and strategic solutions firm located in New York City and San Francisco.

Welcome to Social Media Playground, a place to discuss all things related to word of mouth (WOM) and social media marketing.... More →

In news that’s been circulating about the web as fast as mouse buttons can click, Facebook has filed for a a $5 billion IPO. While it’s still unknown on which stock exchange Facebook will trade, it’s safe to assume that the platform’s ticker symbol will be simply ”FB.” At the moment, Facebook will have to field questions and scrutiny from regulators and court investors before trading begins.

Tumblr Hires Journos to Write About… Tumblr In a rather bizarre mobius strip of narcissim, blogging platform Tumblr has hired two journalists to write exclusively about… Tumblr. Rationalizing that the almost 44 million tumblogs qualify as a city of its own, Chris Mohney and Jessica Bennett will write exclusively about Tumblr and its content from the steely, analytic eye of journalism (instead of just blogging about it). All articles and postings will be found on the Tumblr staff blog.

Susan G. Komen’s Very Weary WeekBreast cancer organization Susan G. Komen has had a very busy week, putting out the flames on their various social media channels and navigating a PR nightmare. The initial firestorm started when the foundation announced that they planned on withdrawing the funds and grants from health care provider Planned Parenthood, which prompted an outcry and much scrutiny about its donation policies across the internet.

As of today, the embattled and wary foundation has announced that they regret their initial decision, and has issued a statement stating that they no longer wish to withdraw financial support.

Twitter Rolls Out Expanded Brand Pages and AnalyticsTwitter’s been busy with expanding on its brand pages program to a few more choice advertisers, and shedding more light on its own set of analytics. While both these features could only be beneficial to the program and its growth, both in userbase and reach, we’re still waiting for tangible results – Twitter’s been promising the launch of its analytics since the end of 2010.

Farmville Post Breaks Guinness World RecordIn a quiet sigh that went around the world, Facebook broke a Guinness World Record – not because of its IPO – but because of a Farmville status with over 1,001,600 comments. We don’t have much to add to this but wanted to quote the following interaction with the user in question regarding her motives:

Hodgson says she took up FrontierVille after her daughter started playing on her Facebook account. She wanted to set the record to show the strength of the FrontierVille community, with which she had become deeply involved.

“I began to play myself, and then got involved in helping with the game’s community groups as an administrator,” she told Guinness. “My friend Nattie Murphy saw the previous record and suggested I try to break it — it sounded like a great idea for our group to show what we are capable of when we work together”

Everyone go weep.

Did we miss a bit o’buzz? Let us know here and join in on the conversation!